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For decades, campaigns have won by borrowing — getting union endorsements, buying TV ads, riding the audiences others built. But a small and growing number of candidates are doing something fundamentally different: building their own audiences from scratch and keeping them well beyond election day. Doug Usher, a partner at Forbes Tate Partners and co-founder of the Analytics Program at Columbia University, joins Eric Wilson to unpack how this shift is changing not just how campaigns are run, but how power works once politicians are in office. From why moderates are at a structural disadvantage in an algorithm-driven world, to why Ted Cruz and Gavin Newsom are already playing the 2028 long game through podcasts and social media, this conversation reframes what it means to run for office in 2026 — and what it will take to win.

https://www.prweek.com/article/1942874/building-vs-borrowing-zohran-mamdani-marjorie-taylor-greene-aftyn-behn-blazed-new-path

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Connected TV spending is growing — but the real question in 2026 isn't whether campaigns should be buying CTV. It's who should be managing the buy.
Eric Wilson sits down with Chauncey Southworth, CEO of CrossScreen Media, to untangle the debate between TV buyers and digital buyers over who owns the streaming buy. Chauncey breaks down where the CTV growth is actually coming from (hint: down-ballot races are surging), why siloed buying is costing campaigns real money, and what questions every campaign should be asking their vendors right now.

They also dig into a striking stat from CrossScreen founder Michael Beach: linear TV viewers see over 13 minutes of ads per hour, while streaming viewers see fewer than 4. What does that mean for your creative strategy? And how should campaigns be thinking about the light viewers who are hardest to reach on any screen?

From supply path optimization to message testing to GOTV strategy for low-propensity voters, this is a conversation that will sharpen how you think about every dollar in your video budget.

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The 2026 midterms present a fundamentally different electoral landscape for Republicans. In this episode, pollster David Kanevsky breaks down exclusive post-election survey data from Virginia and New Jersey that reveals how campaigns are now dealing with two distinct electorates: highly engaged partisans who consume news across every platform, and politically disengaged voters who stream without ads and intentionally avoid political content.

The conversation reveals a media landscape where more voters now get their TV content through streaming than traditional broadcast or cable, where news has been "unbundled" from weather and sports, and where platforms like TikTok and LinkedIn now reach more voters than X/Twitter. With nearly half of votes being cast before Election Day and the most persuadable voters being the least engaged with traditional political media, campaigns must fundamentally rethink their approach.

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